I’m quite proud of the direction our school is moving in technology.

Online Courses

In 2008 I was teaching at Loyola Picton campus.  I was the only teacher there and our students were stuck with whatever course I was teaching.  I wanted to give access to more courses for them and started online teaching.

Since then we are now up to 22 online courses offered in our Loyola sites!
I’m also proud to say that we are leading the way on course design and providing rich feedback to students.

 

Access for All

In 2013 I found that our students were having difficulty not having access to Microsoft Office (which we use at our schools) on their home computers.  They also regularly would lose files or not be able to access at home.  Many also didn’t have a home computer and would go to the library etc. and try to keep track of a USB key for their work.

So I initiated Google Apps for Education (GAFE) with our domain loyolalearning.ca.  This gives every student at Loyola access to a Google account that we can support and learn how to use together.  No more lost files or difficulties not having the right program – it is all online and accessible anywhere in the world!

Shared Database

Our cluster of 4 Loyola Schools became much more of a community when we started offering online courses.  Now we were sharing students and offering them many educational paths.  We needed to develop a database to track student progress and manage courses amongst our sites.  Originally we started with a shared database between Loyola Picton and Belleville, but this needed to grow and work with all of our students.  This was getting beyond my programming capability and we hired a programmer to design and support our Loyola Database.  I have enjoyed managing and supporting it and training others on how to use it.  It is an ever-growing database that allows us to track and guide students very well.